Proud to be British; and proud to be Jewish’

The holocaust and British values in the twenty-first century

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12904153
AutoresKara Critchell (University of Chester, autor correspondente)
Ano2018
Volume26
Fascículo1
Páginas85-107
Data de publicação2018-10-05
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoHolocaust Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1750-4902 • E-ISSN: 2048-4887
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17504902.2018.1528414
OpenAlexW2895320159
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas16

As we approach the post-witness era this paper investigates the changing role of the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors in twenty-first century British politics and culture. In the first part, the article discusses the ways in which, through their role in educational initiatives and commemorative culture, survivors have acquired an increased visibility in British understandings of the Holocaust. For a significant period of time, this process was characterized by a tendency to abstract survivors from their Jewish identities to ensure that they could more easily act as mediators of a universalized, yet highly domesticated, Holocaust narrative with meanings for contemporary British society. However, in the second part the article will argue that, starting from the second decade of the twenty-first century, it is also possible to discern an increasing acknowledgement of British Holocaust survivors’ ‘difference.’ It will be suggested that British politicians have attempted to mobilize survivors, the Anglo-Jewish community they are seen to represent, and the Holocaust more in general, in Britain’s domestic battle against Islamic extremism and in the pursuit of the rather elusive concept of ‘British values.’

Acknowledgement · Archaeology · Art · Judaism · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · The Holocaust · Witness · Gender Studies · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Turkey's Politics and Society